Economic and environmental analyses of coal and biomass to liquid fuels

Weiguo Liu, Jingxin Wang, Debangsu Bhattacharyya, Yuan Jiang and David DeVallance

Energy, 2017, vol. 141, issue C, 76-86

Abstract: We analyzed the economic feasibility and environmental benefits of an alternative technology that converts coal and biomass to liquid fuels (CBTL), using West Virginia as a real case scenario. A mixed integer linear programming model was developed to analyze the economic feasibility. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) model was also developed to analyze the environmental benefits. Sensitivity analyses on required selling price (RSP) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of CBTL fuels were conducted according to feedstock availability and price, biomass to coal mix ratio, conversion rate, internal rate of return (IRR), capital cost, operational and maintenance cost. The results showed the price of coal had a more dominant effect on RSP than that of biomass. Different mix ratios and conversion rates led to RSP ranging from $104.3 – $157.9/bbl. LCA results indicated that GHG emissions ranged from 80.62 kg CO2 eq to 101.46 kg CO2 eq/1000 MJ of liquid fuel at various biomass to coal mix ratios and conversion rates if carbon capture and storage (CCS) was applied. Most of the water and fossil energy were consumed in the conversion process. Compared to petroleum-derived-liquid fuels, the reduction in GHG emissions could be between −2.7% and 16.2% with CBTL substitution.

Keywords: Biofuels; Bioenergy; Coal; Biomass; Life cycle assessment; GHG emissions; Biomass harvest logistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217315700
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:141:y:2017:i:c:p:76-86

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2017.09.047

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().